


Twelve lashes

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Lady Charlotte, Pirate Bass, Pirates of the Revolution, no blackout au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 05:38:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5528009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s a pirate. Old friend of her father perhaps, but she’d fallen into his hands after being marooned by her naval escort, Captain Neville babbling something about no decent ship daring the wrath of the Butcher, whoever that might be. Monroe and his Republic - god save her immortal soul for such treachery – had agreed to ferry her to the Colonies, but he made no pretence at being a loyal servant of the King, and this was no merchantman. That banner snapping in the wind has a pair of crossed cutlasses below the giant M.   For Monroe, she assumes, but it might as well be the Jolly Roger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelve lashes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RevoInfinite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RevoInfinite/gifts).



> Revoinfinite created a
> 
> [marvellous pirates manip](http://theorgyarmada.tumblr.com/post/135897859239/day-one-no-blackout-verse-its-said-they-were)   
> 
> 
> to launch our first day of Revels: here's hoping my story goes halfway towards doing it justice.

“Insubordination!” the first mate roars, and the entire deck stills, the ship a gallery of shocked stares.  Every last sailor is suddenly focused on her.

She splutters, feeling uncharacteristically reprimanded. She is Charlotte Porter Matheson, Lady Charlotte, and this raggedy parody of a man will not cow her.

But she is a lady, and she supposes he is her host, no matter the vicious glowers he sends her way every time she dares take the fresh air. Perhaps they’d been trying to conceal the nature of this ship from her, locking her away below decks and hoping she wouldn’t notice their strange attire and abominable lack of discipline. Captain Monroe, her foot. The man was a pirate.

One with manners, she will allow, unlike this beast of a creature. Strausser made her skin crawl with his leers, and she had seen the worry that creased the Captain’s forehead when he had introduced them. “You’ll not need to bother the first mate, my lady, because you’ll stay below decks,” he’d ordered, and yes, she supposes she had disobeyed a direct order.

Insubordination it was not, though.

“Twelve lashes,” the beast howls, and her throat closes with fear. She’d heard a man’s screaming, two nights ago, the hiss of the whip and the sick squelch as it bit into flesh, and her father had not been Admiral of Her Majesty’s Navy for nothing, she knew about the customs aboard ship but …

“Her ladyship will take her punishment below,” the Captain’s voice washes over her, carefully blank as he gives the order. Sometimes that voice crackled with mirth, others it was silky with something she didn’t care to identify, but right now, it rang with command. None would dare gainsay him.

“They call him the Scourge,” Lieutenant Neville had muttered. “I will do what I can for you, my lady.”

Charlotte had wanted to point out it was his father who had abandoned the charge to transport her all the way to the Colonies, where her father had finally readied the house. Young Jason Neville didn’t deserve the sharp side of her tongue, however, so she held it, and murmured gratefully.

The Scourge, her dread whispers. Could it be he might actually think to whip her?

“Tie her to the post in my cabin,” Monroe says coolly, then actually bows. “I’ll join you in a moment, my lady.”

“For yer lashes,” Strausser howls, but his malice is shortlived, the Captain’s elbow suddenly flying back to catch him in the throat. How effective, Charlotte notes, even as her body clamours with what she’s sure is terror.

Two ruffians seize her arms and she shakes them off with a glare to present them all with her back, gliding towards the stairs with her head held high. She pauses outside the door next to her own cabin, and the abashed sailor opens the door for her and holds it wide.

“Uh – I need to tie you to the post, milady,” the blonde ruffian – Baker, she remembers – apologises. “Could you ..?”

Charlotte smiles and arranges her back against the post.

“Uh – for a whipping, it’s usually …”

“We’ll let the Captain sort that out,” she smiles, and presents her hands for the rope.

“Uh, above your head, miss?”

She blinks, and then accedes. Gracious. It’s … she feels oddly vulnerable.

Baker studiously avoids looking at her straining bodice as he ties her hands to pole over her head, but is still blushing furiously by the time he finishes. “Just a few loops around your waist, miss … uh, sorry. My lady.”

“Of course, Mr Baker,” she accedes with a smile, trying not to giggle as his blush deepens. His gentleness crosses from the sublime to the ridiculous as the rope around her waist sags alarmingly over her hips. Does he think her completely incapable of escape?

Charlotte would roll her eyes if rolling her eyes was something a lady did.

Then the door opens and her levity vanishes.

“Out,” Monroe snarls, and in that moment Charlotte cannot see any trace of the gallant he has been since she first stepped about The Republic. Baker and his underling scurry out the room, leaving the pirate and his captive completely alone.

Charlotte shivers as their eyes collide, sea against sky.

Her world shrinks to the stubborn jut of his jaw, stubbornly locked to prevent … something. He sighs, then, obviously frustrated. “Twelve lashes, Charlotte. You’ve put me in a difficult position.”

She overlooks his egregious use of her first name to summon penitence. “My apologies, Captain. That was not my intent. Sometimes I …” she can’t finish the sentence. It’s insane to even think she should confide in this, this … pirate.

“You’ve been brought up in a cage, a pretty bird only ever allowed to sing. But sometimes you want to shriek. Maybe even scream?” he suggests.

Charlotte blinks, astonished. How could he possibly …

“Sisters,” he explains, that muscle pulling at his jaw once more. “Good, well brought up girls. Except for when they weren’t.” He stalks closer, and pulls the long plait of her hair out from where it’s snagging on the pole. “Are you a good girl, Charlotte?”

She gasps at the improper question, and pushes her chin into the air. “I am a lady, sirrah.”

“A fine, high born lady,” he agrees with a smile that dazzles. “But that’s not what I asked. Are you a good girl, or perhaps … a passionate woman?”

“I have no idea what you mean, Captain,” she snaps, but she’s lying. Her breasts are heavy and aching in the low cut gown, and there’s a river of fire dancing in her veins. Her traitorous body knows she’s not a good girl – one too many dances with a dashing officer, one too many smiles at a known rake – but she’s never felt anything like _this_ before.

But the most terrifying thing is that somehow, he knows it.

He looms over her to check the binding on her hands, so close she can feel the heat of him washing over her skin. “Course you don’t,” he agrees, eyes daring her to call his bluff. Her hearts beats an entreaty – once, twice, a third time – before he inclines his head in the slightest of bows and steps away.

“Lady Charlotte, I knew your father once. You might even have called us friends. I won’t pretend to be a gentleman, but I have my own honour. No harm will come to you while you are in my hands,” he rasps. She believes him, but can feel the weight of the sentence that must surely be coming next.

“The problem I have is that to preserve discipline on my ship, my orders, and those of my officers, must be law. And my first mate sentenced you to twelve lashes.”

“I am ready to take my punishment. I was, in truth, insubordinate, though I cannot promise not be be so again.”

His laugh is a wicked thing that plucks at something deep in her belly. “I would expect no less of a Matheson. And twelve lashes you shall have, child.”

“I am no child, Captain Monroe. I am a spinster of one and twenty years,” Charlotte protests, some wild, unruly part of her needing him to know that, even tied to a pole, she is the mistress of her own destiny. “The marriage mart has long given up on me, and in letting me escape London, even my mother has bowed to that. ”

“Too much wild blood,” he pronounces, eyes hot on her face, and yes, her blood sings. Yes, her body responds in a deafening chorus.

Charlotte wriggles a little, loosening the rope at her hips enough to let her turn around, presenting him with her back. “Your punishment.”

“You will need to scream.”

“I have confidence in your ability to make that happen, sir.”

She puzzles at his long groan, then gasps as something whistles through the air to crack against the post above her head.

“Scream,” he reminds her.

Oh.

Charlotte lets loose a bloodcurdling scream and feels his smile heat the room behind her.

Again and again he strikes, never once hitting her. She is breathless by the time he finishes, her throat raw. He grins conspiratorially as he cuts her hands free, and she tells herself her weak knees are of no consequence.

Then he tells her to slip out of her dress. “I would not whip you in public, but the mob will need some satisfaction,” he apologises, and holds up a red concoction he had brought into the room with him. “Your blood, milady.”

“Oh.” She is suddenly dumbfounded by the reality of what could have happened to her, her hands working automatically at the fastenings. It is easy enough – she was not stupid enough to bring anything too complicated on a transatlantic voyage – but the shift she is wearing underneath is so fine as to be nearly transparent. If he is roasting her with his eyes now, what will happen once he can see every last secret of her body?

What does she _want_ to happen, Charlotte finds herself wondering, her own honesty suddenly shocking to her.   The answer is even more so.

Her hands shake as she starts on her laces, and when she stumbles on a knot, his are there to help her.

“Thank you,” she murmurs as he lifts the mass of linen up over her head, clearly trying not to look at her as he lays it on his map table to slash at it with his knife.

“Wrap yourself in a blanket from my bunk,” he orders gruffly, and she tells herself she’s pleased at how gentlemanly he is being.

But instead of crossing to his bunk she steps in front of him, and waits for him to look up. “Twelve lashes,” she says.

“What of them?” he snaps, but his eyes have fallen, hungry. The tips of her breasts furl tight for him, shamelessly pushing against the fine lawn, and the sensitive territories between her thighs are suddenly slippery.

“I said I would take my punishment, sir. I am glad it is not to be your whip, but I am waiting.”

His eyes fly up to hers, incredulous, but something in her own gaze turns them slumbrous. “Far be it for me to deny a lady anything she desires. Twelve lashes it is.”

He turns her away from him with a hand on her shoulder that becomes a warm arm over the upper slopes of her breasts.

“One,” he breathes in her ear as he brings the flat of his hand down on her posterior. She almost screams, but not because it hurts.

“Two,” he grunts as he does it again. His hand lingers, and this time it’s a moan that erupts from her throat.

“Three.” Neither of them are pretending anymore, Charlotte collapsing back into him as soon as his maddening hand leaves her oversensitised flesh. His chest is heaving against her shoulders, and the arm across her chest has dropped lower, to rub across the fullness of her breasts.

“Turn around,” he whispers, and she bites her lip against the urge to beg for the full twelve lashes she is owed. Damn his mercy.

Their eyes lock the minute she turns and his hands are suddenly either side of her waist. “Nine to go,” he says lightly, but it’s a question and a warning alike. One Charlotte has no idea how to answer – what could he possibly intend for the other nine?

His eyes drag their shared gaze down to the hard peaks scraping against her shift and her breath catches inn her throat. Oh!

He is asking if he can touch her. There.

Charlotte fights the blush that spirals out of nowhere and before she can think about it, pushes the neckline of her shift down to free the plump mounds of her breasts above it.

“Four?” she begs, and his smile is a savage, beautiful thing.

“Four,” he agrees, then bends his head to rasp his tongue over the sensitive peak, before pulling it between his lips to suckle.

Her scream fills the room and his head flies up. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. That’s not what you wanted?”

“I didn’t know,” she blurts. “Don’t stop.”

He swoops again with a satisfied chuckle, and before he pronounces “six”, the insistent tug of his lips and occasional graze of teeth has left a pressure building in her body that she’s never known. A pressure that leaves her pushing against him, rubbing like a cat, tears in her eyes.

“Charlotte.”

“Uh – “

“Do you trust me?”

He’s a pirate. Old friend of her father perhaps, but she’d fallen into his hands after being marooned by her naval escort, Captain Neville babbling something about no decent ship daring the wrath of the Butcher, whoever that might be. Monroe and his Republic - god save her immortal soul for such treachery – had agreed to ferry her to the Colonies, but he made no pretence at being a loyal servant of the King, and this was no merchantman. That banner snapping in the wind has a pair of crossed cutlasses below the giant M.   For Monroe, she assumes, but it might as well be the Jolly Roger.

She thinks all of this in that moment, but moans her assent anyway.

“Yes.”

“Seven,” he says as he drops to his knees before her, lifting her shift slowly to bare her sex to him. “Eight,” is the slow, wet passage of his tongue over her slit, “nine” as it ventures inside to graze against something that electrifies her entire body.

“Ten” as his lips close around it and his fingers ease into her tight channel.

“Eleven” is a wave breaking over her head, her knees buckling with the onslaught of it.  There's a roaring in her ears and colours bursting behind her closed eyelids as her body convulses around his fingers as she wails her delight.

She opens her eyes as he lifts her into his bunk, eyes blazing as she shudders in his arms. “Was there a twelve?”

His grin is as broad as the horizon as he drops a kiss on her forehead. “Twelve. You Mathesons do like to pay your debts after all.”

“We do,” she agree as she stretches lazily, her body still drugged with pleasure. “I fear, however, that your passenger might be a very difficult charge, Captain. You may well need to punish her again.”

He shouts with laughter then goads her to another infraction. This time, she counts out the punishment herself, and if she gets stuck on five, over and over again? Captain Monroe, she discovers, isn’t one to complain.

Four days later, she’s sprawled naked in his bunk when the creak of timbers drags her out of an exhausted slumber. There’s shouting outside, the flap of hastily trimmed sail, and when she peers out the porthole, another ship coming alongside.

Flying the same flag, she notes with a frown. The lettering is bright on the bow, but it’s curving away from her and she can’t quite make it out until the ship lists a little … The Militia, she reads. Another odd name for a ship.

She’s pulling on her shift when the door opens and they barrel through together.

“Ah, Charlotte! You’re awake, good. May I present, Captain Miles Matheson.  Your uncle.”

“I am in my shift, sir!”

“And clearly in his bed too, lass. Damnation, Bass.  Look after my niece, I said. Bring her home safe, I said.”

The dark man – her Uncle Miles? – looks murderous, and Charlotte’s heart thunders for her pirate in that moment. Sebastian, however, looks unconcerned.

“She is safe! Got all her fingers and all her toes and everything in between,” Monroe smirks. “I checked.”

“Except her hymen, I’m betting,” the other pirate snorts, and grabs the whiskey off the table.

“It’s eight o’clock in the morning,” Charlotte protests automatically, and the man raises a single eyebrow in her direction before taking a long swig.

His eyes are still on her when he wipes his mouth with his hand. “My brother has just declared war on me, his lady wife has wanted my head for decades, and now I’ve just found my partner has thoroughly debauched their daughter. Trust me. I need a drink.”

Charlotte considers that, then mirrors the sentiment with in a near-identical motion. “Better pour me one too, then. I didn’t even know I had an Uncle Miles.”

“There’s probably a reason for that,” her uncle grimaces. “Might even tell you one day.”

“Plenty of time for that,” Sebastian growls from behind her, one hand smoothing her long tangle of hair away from her neck. “Not even the high and mighty Porters will be able to raise this ransom.”

Charlotte’s knees began to quake as his lips work their way across the nape of her neck. By the time his hand comes up to pluck at her nipple through her shift, she doesn’t care that her uncle is watching them with lidded eyes from just a few feet away.

“Your prisoner,” she pledges, pushing into Monroe's hands.

“Twelve lashes,” her pirate growls, already walking her backwards. Her knees hit the bunk at the same time as the door slams behind them, her uncle’s curses going unheard.

“But I’ve been such a bad, bad girl.” Charlotte pouts as she spreads her knees wide. “You rotten, thieving, no good pirate.”

“Twenty it is.”

 

_fin_


End file.
